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Canonical Seeks $32 Million To Make Ubuntu Smartphone

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-the-man dept.

nk497 writes "Canonical has kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to raise $32 million in 30 days to make its own smartphone, called Ubuntu Edge, that can also hook up to a monitor and be used as a PC. If it meets its funding target on Indiegogo, the Ubuntu Edge is scheduled to arrive in May 2014. To get one, backers must contribute $600 (£394) on the first day or $810 (£532) thereafter. Canonical will only make 40,000 of the devices."

3 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Looks nice but bridges burnt? by Duncan+J+Murray · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem is that the 'enthusiasts' who would be contributing to this have just recently had several slaps to the face from Canonical in the form of window buttons, unity, unity & unity. And amazon shopping lenses. 'This is not a democracy' is still rings in the ears. Now Canonical realise that they need the enthusiasts, who's toes they stepped on, to help with this venture into the mobile space.

    To be honest, I hope they succeed. I think the concept of a phone that doubles as a desktop could very well be the future of the desktop computer for many people. The hardware also looks very nice (which is a necessity to tempt anyone off android/ios) - I agree with Shuttleworth that mobile screen resolution is getting out of hand, and I'd much rather the colourful OLED displays than the ridiculously high res LCDs (which then look laggy because the graphics can't keep up - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmywUhu2Pus) and a sapphire glass screen sounds interesting (though will it be as strong as gorilla glass - I doubt it).

    I wonder how many of us would have paid up if Nokia had done this with the N950?

    1. Re:Looks nice but bridges burnt? by briancox2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And yet, within less than 12 hours, they've hit 3/4 of a million US dollars. Watching them over a 10 minute period, after this story went live on Slashdot, they've gone from $650,000 to $750,000. I think the enthusiasts are onboard.

      Keep in mind that the enthusiasts for this project go beyond the Ubuntu Desktop OS enthusiasts. I am a dedicated Ubuntu Desktop OS hater. I'm a Linux Mint guy myself. But I want to see a pure Linux desktop OS succeed on mobile, because it opens the door for others to follow. Rooting your Ubuntu Phone could create a massive amount of ROM flashing options.

      The phone that launches a full desktop when docked (and has 128 GB of storage!) is a game changer in the mobile market. So, fanbois of any stripe can be an enthusiast for this project.

      --
      We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
  2. Re:Why? ~nt~ by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Posted without sarcasm:

    1. Maybe there won't be the quid pro quo of all of your private information so you can use the "free" apps

    2. Perhaps your carrier won't be able to dive into your phone and change any old setting they desire

    3. With luck, maybe your apps won't have obscene data needs that can be sold on the open market for bigdamndata engines

    4. And maybe we can have apps that just do something, rather then the crippled-til-you-pay model.

    But Canonical hasn't guaranteed anything, and the carriers won't love them unless Canonical allows them to feed their shareholders, so it's unlikely as a result that carriers will want the devices to market in the first place.

    Oh, wait.....

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.